Council of Chalcedon; in the wake of the council centered around the question of the nature of Christ, large parts of the Egyptian church separate in a century-long process from the church in Constantinople, leading to a coexistence of Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian (Coptic) patriarch in Egypt

474-491

Zeno, emperor in the East (with two interruptions to his rule), attempts to reunite the divided church

Early Islamic period

Conquest of Egypt by an Arab force under the general cAmr ibn al-cAs; the lower and medium echelons of the administration still in the hands of local Christian dignitaries

706

Use of Greek as administrative language abolished; flowering of Coptic as administrative language in the 7 th and 8 th centuries

8th-9th cent.

Increasing arabization (government edicts redacted in Arabic starting in 706); first wave of conversions in the wake of failed rebellions and fiscal pressure in the first half of the 9 th cent., culminating in the ultimately unsuccessful Bashmuric revolts with the deportation or conversion of many Christians

8th-11th cent.

Production of the majority of Coptic manuscripts known today, copying, redacting and collecting activity in Coptic monasteries